National Academy of Social Insurance Launches Study to Examine Medicare And HIV/AIDS in California

For Immediate Release: July 28, 2000
Contact: Jill Braunstein at (202) 452-8097

WASHINGTON, DC — The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) has received a $70,000 grant from the California HealthCare Foundation to examine Medicare and HIV/AIDS in California. Specifically, the one-year study will draw on the experiences of Medicare beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS to examine the capacity of Medicare in providing health security to people with long-term, chronic health conditions.

Other goals of the project include:

• Analyzing how different approaches for Medicare reform might affect beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS as they try to navigate federal, state, and private insurance systems; and
• Helping providers, policymakers, and academics better organize health coverage for people with HIV and other complex conditions.

To accomplish these goals, the Academy will work in collaboration with the National Association of People with AIDS to conduct telephone and on-site interviews, augmented by analysis of key data sets. The interviews will provide information on issues of concern related to health care and delivery systems, in California and the country as a whole.

“We welcome the support of the California HealthCare Foundation,” said National Academy of Social Insurance President Lawrence H. Thompson. “These monies assist in the Academy’s long-term effort to provide non-partisan analysis of the many complicated questions facing our nation’s health care system.”

Jill Bernstein, Ph.D., Director of Health Policy Studies at NASI, is the project’s principal investigator and June Eichner, Senior Research Associate at NASI, will be the staff lead on the study.

The California HealthCare Foundation, based in Oakland, California, is a nonprofit philanthropic organization whose mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of the people of California. Established in 1996 by Blue Cross of California, the foundation is independently endowed and managed.

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The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization comprised of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to conduct research and enhance public understanding of social insurance, develop new leaders, and provide a nonpartisan forum for the exchange of ideas in the field. For more information on the National Academy of Social Insurance visit www.nasi.org or call (202) 452-8097.